You may think the following is pedantic (hairsplitting), but I belive that when we get small details wrong - when we casually label situations and people - we lead ourselves into to larger misunderstandings, or perhaps I should say: missed-understandings
Myth 1. It's the Pedophiles who 'do things' to children.
According to statistics, there are millions of people domng things to kids. But 'pedohile' is the worng label for them. In fact (you can check it) a pedophile is a person who gets hard or wet (yes there are female pedohilles) at the thought of kids. THere are other kinds of pedophile who are not attracted to kids in sexual way, but might still be attracted in a way that is 'creepy' or inappropriate. Many pedohiles never lay a hand on anyone but themselves - and so someone who is a pedophile is not 'bad'
Opinion: any adult is fine - until they exploit their superiority (intellectual, physical, authoritative) over a child.
We often use labels when we are afraid of something - a word such as 'pedohile' is comforting to us becuase we can use it to push away that which bothers us - push it 'over there' - where the 'pedophiles' are. In the mass media the label 'pedophile' now seems to refer to anyone who does sexual things to kids, and yet there are many adults who are sexually victimizing children and yet do not fit the definition of a pedohpile. Meanwhile, there are genuine pedohiles out there who do not touch kids, or purchase child porn, or do any of the other things that we expect them to do. Now there is evidence that genuine pedophiles are declining to seek support and counselling because they feel ashamed and afraid - even though they have done nothing except face something about themseslve and decide to seek advice. Ironically, the stigma attached to 'being a pedohpile' has resulted in a situation where pedohpile are less likely to seek support and are more likely to suffer declining mental health, a slide into a dangerous situation for themseleves and others.. In France there is familly advocacy group that has assisted families dealing with child abuse; when the same organization offered assistance to pedohpiles who were seeking support there was a national outcry - the woman who runs the organization was accused of 'promoting' child abuse. She was on a radio talk show, explaining her purpose, and callers were almost screaming at her. Poor woman. That's what lables can lead to. Meanwhile, stats (US and French) show that most sexual abuse is committed by people who do not fit the deifinition of 'pedophile' In fact there is no simple label - and not having a label means: 'they're all around us'. That's the point - it can be anyone.
Myth. More girls are abused than boys.
The gender of the child and the gender of the perptrator play a role in the mode of the abuse, but not the fact of the abuse. As many boys are harmed as girls, though the nature of the abuse varies. Here we run into another trap: 'girls are raped, boys are beaten'. Unfortuanately, there is an infinite variety of experiences that adults can casually, or methodically, inflict on children. What we are confronting is: 'adult' working out on 'child'.
Myth. Child Sex Abuse (CSA) is about having sex with a kid. CSA is not sex. CSA is about an adult manipulating a child's ignorance/inexperience/trust and then using that child as a vehicle for fleeting self gratification.
Kids do have 'sex' with each other, just as they will experiment with other things, but an 'adult' trying to have sex with a child is not actually seeking sex - they are seeking a sense of comfort/validation/satoisfaction (that they never achieve).
There are at least two organiztaions that advocate 'sex' between adults children - they use the reasoning that a child can be sexually aware (true) and can therefore be an equal partner with an adult in a sexual transaction (false). Studies of children - how they make decisions, how they respond to adults, how they think about sexual matters, how they view the concept of self, etc - refute the claim that children are suitable sex partners for adults. A women was seeking advice in a private chat-room on how to seduce a thirteen year old girl for whom she had 'the hots'. She was aware that she had grown up in a sexually confused household (adult-child incest), yet she would not make the connection between that situation and what she was trying to do with the girl. She was at that time unable her to face that her own childhhood had been taken away from her - instead, she would do almost anything to validate that her experiences were somehow 'okay'. She was draewn to the innocence of the child, confusing sex with freeddom. In fact no one was freed until the woman sought help. Sadly, this occured only after the girl had been dragged into a cofussion that had notrhing to do with her in the first place.
Myth. Gays are more likely to abuse children. Not true. There is no simpole ;abel based method to mark oput someone who might harm kids. I wish there were. One of my perpetrators was of my gender. He did thinsg to me of a sexual nature, but i do not believe he was 'gay'. indeed, it turned out he was doing girls too. Once again, it was an adult working out ther pain on the next gernaration. I notice that people are very concerned about homosexual couple adopting. That concern is justified - anyone - ANY ONE - who wants access to children should be thoroughly examined by a pyschritrist first.
Myth. If a kid was abused when very small then they won't remember what happened. Half true... Babies begin to learn even beofoer birth. And once they are outside, as soon as their senses are able to fucntion in the outside world, then they begin learniong in earnest - every experience contriburtes to their development. A baby has a short memeory - development is day to day and based on that short term memroy as well as new input. A number of studies demonstrate that these effects are not simply pyschological (software, if you like) but alos hardware (the brain itself). It has been shown that the human brain undergoes profound structural change during the first 5-8 years of life and that a child's experiences are a strong ionfluence on this 'wiring' process. Some psycologists claim that early child abuse can cause brain damage - ie the brain develpes abnormally. This does not mean that mothers should shel;ter their kjids from everything (which would be harmful too), but it does suggest that mistreatment of babies is not without consequences for the child's later life - even if that future adult has no explicit memory of being abused. Is that scary? Yeah, me too. Unfortunetaly, becuase abusive parents are often fairly cowardly, they are more likely to do the bulk of their 'work out' when their victim is 'too young' to know what's going on, at the very stage when they are at their most maliable. Abusive parents give many excuse, a common one is that cannot 'cope', but it all comes down to the same thing in the crib.
When does clear, long term memoriy begin? Science generally puts it around age 5 or 6, but accepts that there might be exceptions. I vaguely remember that my mother used to slap my genitalia, hard, and perform mock castrations (she'd had the rough end from every 'man' in her life). She did some other fruity stuff too ( a bit too fruity for this site). Her behavior moderated over time, and the last violent incident occuered when I was around five and half. However, according to a rule followed by one branch of psyciatry none of that can have happened becuase I have no witness to it and no other means to prove what I remember (think about that long enough and you could go crazy too...) Anyway, my mother claimed to hardly remember anything from her own childhood, let alone mine.. And then she would start sobbing hysterically.. So, memroy seems to be a complicated subject and I'm not sure that either science or psychitry has got all the details straightened out yet. However, my opinion is: there is no 'safe' age to do things to kids.
Myth. To recover from child abuse you need to forgive. Not true. This is a distortion of ideas presnted in religion - as you know, in most religions, people who forgive others are highly praised. In my (possibly blapshemopus) opinion, forgiviness is more like an emotion than something one decides to do. You either forgive someone or you don;t forgive them, just as you eoither love someone or you don't love them. You can't be 'wrong' for having (or not having) a feeling about something or someone. If Jesus existed and if he was indeed good, then I speculate that it was exatctly that - good in deed - and not because he felt forgivness for those who nailed him to a cross.
You do not have to forgive in order to 'heal', but you do need to face what was done to you, and while it is possible to have sympathy for the person who did you wrong, that does not mean that you must/can/will forgive them. Example: my mother was (I belive) raped as a child and then told it was her fault. I have sympathy for the child she was, but, sorry, I don't forgive what she, the 'mother', did to me. It's not that I 'decided' to not forgive, it's just that I don't feel that. I don't love her either. It's all sad, but there we are - and none of that was my fault. See what I'm getting at?